


Houseplant

by LucyAnne



Category: Cherry Almanac
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24029521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucyAnne/pseuds/LucyAnne
Summary: Nazr tries his hand at being a landlord.CW: Human Consumption, Bodily Dissolvement, Class Tensions/Warfare
Kudos: 1





	Houseplant

**Author's Note:**

> (NOTE: This story was initially written in accordance with the VERY strict and constrictive guidelines of a short-story competition some time ago, and is therefore quite short and probably not quite as fleshed-out as it could/should/would be. It is a story I may choose to lengthen if one day I find that time is actually on my side)

It hadn’t been there last Thursday. Nazr was sure of that. He hiked through this field almost twice a week, and he was positive there weren’t any man-made structures anywhere near this plot of land, save for his own house. And yet there it was, plain as day: a perfectly rectangular brick square protruding about a foot from the Earth, the corner of which had caught his ankle, causing him to stumble and fall in the middle of that field. It was a good thing too, as it appeared to be hollow and a straight shot down. A little more to the left and he would’ve fallen right into it.  
It wasn’t until returning to the scene a few weeks later and seeing the object had risen several more feet that Nazr realized it was a chimney. There simply wasn’t anything else it could’ve been. He briefly considered that it might have been some part of a sewer system or well, but shining a flashlight into its depths revealed what looked to be a pile of firewood sitting before a small opening at the bottom. And so, he tied a rope to a nearby boulder and made the precarious descent down the dusty shaft.  
He wasn’t sure what would be waiting for him at the bottom, but it wasn’t the interior of an unfinished house, all bare wood, unmarked housewrap, exposed insulation, and thick sheets of plastic being the only things sitting in the windowsills which kept the soil from pouring in. Nor, indeed, was it the well-painted, modestly-furnished domicile he entered two weeks later when he’d had the idea to go back with a camera and had found the beginnings of a tiled roof starting to poke up from next to the chimney, which Nazr now had to climb to get into.  
Certainly though, it wasn’t the cozy, rustic, two-story, seven-room cottage complete with heat, electricity, and running water that sat fully-formed and ominously in his backyard about a month after he’d first discovered its smokestack. Nazr truly didn’t know what to make of it, although he cursed himself for not having thought to call a news station or some such thing while it had still been growing! Now, gazing upon what he assumed to be a completed house, he knew no one would ever believe such a thing had risen from the ground.  
He considered moving into it himself. After all, it was considerably nicer than the one-story bungalow he resided in on his own. Being in this new house gave him pause, however. He could never rest peacefully in any of its pre-made beds, as he could never quite shake the feeling of being watched, nor could he effectively pass off any of the strange noises he’d hear throughout the night as “the house settling”.  
This was not the explanation he provided the undocumented family he eventually decided to rent to. In fact, he hadn’t offered them any sort of explanation at all. And why should he need to? He was asking a very reasonable price for such a luxurious space, after all, and he guessed correctly that for a family with nowhere else to turn, it was very reasonable indeed. Nazr made it clear that the transactions made for rent payment would be entirely paperless, save for the money itself that was exchanged, and the family was to keep quiet about this particular aspect of their living arrangement. They raised no complaints and asked no questions, promising they’d be out of his hair in a few months anyway, which Nazr privately and gleefully discerned would give him plenty of time to obtain a deed for the building, probably by coming up with some sort of cover story to explain the building which had somehow materialized on his property one day. 

That was the plan, at least, until just four days after the new family had moved in. Nazr woke to his telephone ringing, and upon picking it up was greeted by one of his tenants. It was the father, an imposing, physically callused blue collar man whom Nazr typically would’ve been afraid of, had he not been in a position of power in their relationship. This showed, both with how timidly he answered the phone, as well as with the tone his tenant took with him, clearly wanting to express his frustration with the problem he was dealing with, but also not wanting to incur the wrath of the landlord who held them in the palm of his hand.  
The man informed him of two things. The first was that the “walls were leaking”. The second was that the basement had flooded. Nazr blinked slowly, and then timorously exclaimed that he’d be right over to address the issues. Truthfully, this news upset him greatly, partly because he had no Earthly idea how to perform any type of home maintenance himself, and partly because, to his knowledge, the house didn’t have a basement.  
He arrived at the house a short while later, and rang the doorbell with a fake smile plastered across his face. He allowed the man to lead him past his wife and crying child in the living room to the Northernmost wall of the kitchen, where it looked like the man had been trying to hang a shelf. He merely pointed to the single nail he’d managed to hammer into the wall, around which a viscous, crimson fluid blossomed from what Nazr’s mind kept wanting to call a “wound”, and trickled down the floral wallpaper in a steady stream.  
Wide-eyed and not knowing what else to do, he asked to be shown the basement. Sure enough, a door had formed in the center of the house, and upon traipsing delicately down the rickety flight of half-open stairs it lead to, he shown his light across the inky expanse to see concrete cell occupied only by a water heater on the far wall and three feet of a sloshing, pungent, off-green liquid.  
Nazr spun around swiftly to inform the man that he both wouldn’t be of any help, and that he didn’t even think this was water, but misjudged how closely he stood behind him and knocked the man off balance, sending him tumbling over the edge of the stairwell and into whatever substance it was that lay below.  
The instant the man hit the water he cried out in pain, and upon resurfacing, Nazr was horrified to see that half of his face had nearly melted off. The man screamed at an octave his towering form shouldn’t have been able to produce, and clutched at the steaming portions of his body that had made contact with the liquid, before his legs gave way and he sunk into it completely.  
Before this had even happened, Nazr was already at the top of the stairs and locking the door behind him. He hadn’t a second to breathe, however, before the entire building began quaking and each surface in the house began shifting inwards rapidly, aiming to fit with one another geometrically in a jigsaw puzzle Nazr should’ve noticed long ago. He heard something sizzling, and looked down to see the soles of his shoes dissolving in a growing puddle of acid being forced out from beneath the basement door.  
He didn’t think. He just ran, shoving the confused mother and child out of his way as he desperately searched for a way out of the ever-shrinking rooms, the tidal wave of acid now threatening to fill every space between them. Every door he tried was locked, and every window seemed impermeable. He was about to despair when his eyes landed on the fireplace. He clambered inside, and looking up, saw the clear blue sky getting smaller and smaller as the brick walls around it closed ever inwards.  
Nazr took advantage of the narrowed space, pinned himself between the walls, and began shuffling up to safety. He almost didn’t make it, the pressure of the rapidly-collapsing chimney threatening to telescope his spine, but finally, he was on the roof once more, the cries of the remaining family members becoming muffled as the chimney closed and drowned out by Nazr’s sobs of relief.  
After the euphoria of survival wore off, Nazr’s instincts kicked back in and he shimmied down the side of the house who’s windows were now black and which had gone totally silent. He began sprinting towards his own home, when suddenly something caught his foot and he was plunged into darkness once more. Just before his head slipped past the opening of the cobblestone chimney, he caught what would be his very last glimpse of the outside world: that same lush meadow in which the house stood, now peppered with dozens and dozens of small brick openings.

End


End file.
